e∞ception
Created and written by Hirotaka Adachi
Directed by Yūzō Satō (chief), Chien Yi Lin, Yu Cheng Wang, Mntn Chang, Grace Chen
Creative director Tomokazu Osawa
Voices of Nolan North, Ali Hillis, Robbie Daymond, Eugene Byrd, Nadine Nicole
Anime that is both science-based (or at least solidly science fiction) and has a substantial and reasonably adult plot is in short supply. Most of it is pretty dire, actually. But it’s well worth it when it does come along. Space Brothers is a good example (although at 53 episodes and three movies, it is a major investment of time and attention). Erased is one of the best time-travel series, particularly since it involves middle-school characters, usually a mainstay of bad anime. Other genres have superior animes, but we’re limiting it to SF for now.
e∞ception is a happy, erm, exception to the bulk. It’s a interstellar travel/first contact tale. After many years at sub-light velocity, the ship arrives at Planet X10 (yes, that’s a unbelievably hokey name, like something out of an Ed Wood movie). Simulacrums of the five crew members are constructed, replicas of five original trained people from long ago and far away on planet Earth. However, there is a solar burst during the reconstruction of one of them, Lewis, creating an asymmetrical and hideously deformed monster. The other four members debate eliminating the monster (referred to as “The Misprint” and replacing it with a hopefully intact version of Lewis. As they argue the ethics, the misprint escapes. Searching for it, they find a word on a bulkhead, written in blood, presumably from the misprint: “Help.” Appearances aside, the monster is sentient and sapient, and apparently a valid mental reconstruction of Lewis.
But one of the crew is trying to sabotage the mission to terraform X10. Naturally the still-missing monster is suspected, and a correct version of Lewis is created in hopes he can replicate the thinking and planning of the monster.
By anime standards, the animation is somewhat pedestrian, the female characters are garbed in unusually skimpy outfits and of course “X10.” But beautiful art work and rock-solid writing more than make up for those shortfalls and make for a worthwhile eight-episode series. The characters are all adult, and possess the sort of intelligence and resources you might expect from a interstellar crew. While it doesn’t have a cliffhanger ending, there is a possibility the story could be continued.
Now on Netflix.
Comments
We saw this too. Enjoyable and the plotting entertained with another twists and turns to keep the story engaging. I wasn’t bothered by the X10 name as much as it seems you were, but what I did want was more about printing people, but that would’ve been an entirely different story.
As you say, the art style was novel, and the character design all called back to an earlier style of anime, one that falls under workmanlike (workpersonlike?).
Thanks for writing the review, enjoy reading your work.
And while searching for where to watch Erased I found that Netflix has the live action version.